An essential requirement for the development, not only of tourism but also of most sectors of economy, is the development of transport infrastructure and adequate accessibility of areas. Accessibility is an important element for tourism development. The Polish-Slovak borderland is currently suffering from inadequate routes to the region and cross-border connections because of the mountains. The borderland are characterised by the poor accessibility and bad condition of the roads. Unfortunately, tourism development analyses and studies carried out over recent decades in Poland and Slovakia have not addressed the problems. The aims of the article was to analyse the Polish-Slovak borderland road accessibility and the key transport solutions required for successful road development. The article presents the results of the analysis on road accessibility to the tourist destinations on the Polish-Slovak borderland. Opportunities for enhancing tourist potential through improved road accessibility of the borderland and new road investments are noted. The accessibility of the area was calculated separately for general tourism, and medium-term tourism (long weekends, 2-4 days) in two years: 2010 and 2030.

Contemporary Polish-Lithuanian relations are heavily burdened by radically different assessments of the situations of the national minorities in the two countries, i.e. Poles in Lithuania and Lithuanians in Poland. However, assessments are fraught with difficulties reflecting a complicated history and the different potentials of the two minorities, and also warped by a great many stereotypes. The main aim of this paper is to compare the situations of the Polish minority in Lithuania and the Lithuanian minority in Poland by reference to criteria that are objective (demographic potential, legal status, organisational activity, education) or subjective (the opinions of leaders of national organisations), as well as to attempt to determine how the different situations of the two minorities affects their relations with the authorities, the majority and the foreign homeland.

The paper introduces the results of a statistical analysis of two components of depopulation, movement through migration and the natural growth of population in the European part of the Russian Federation during the period 1990-2010. The analysis also involves a breakdown by nationality, which is seen to be a driver of quantitative change. A typology analysis is presented with consideration given to trends to demographic growth or decline. The outcome of an analysis via Webb’s typology indicates that depopulation occurs due to natural decline with an increasing role of migration as a driver of depopulation.

This article presents an analysis of the population-density distributions present in 147 Polish towns and cities of 30,000 inhabitants or more, as of 2002. The determination of these distributions was by reference to concentric rings 1 km across, with numbers of inhabitants being determined on the basis of aggregate data for 14,000 statistical districts, the numbers per centre ranging from 16 in the case of Łuków to 1346 in Warsaw. The districtsin question cover a total area of 9800 km2 and account overall for some 16.8 million inhabitants of Poland. This makes this the most exhaustive analysis of population-density distributions ever carried out for the country. The results of the analyses point to the wide spread presence of function-related distributions of population density in the largest Polish cities, albeit irrespective of their size as referred to more precisely. A clear majority (88%) of centres are characterised by a distribution model in line with either the exponential or power functions, or derivatives. The ‘crater effect’ indicative of depopulation in city centres is met with only rarely, in just a very few towns and cities, this perhaps reflecting the relative youthfulness of Poland’s urban areas.

The main purpose of this paper is to identify ongoing changes in post-socialist large housing estates and to clarify their main factors, using a case study approach. The paper examines the transformations of nine housing estates in the third largest Polish city – Łódź. The transformations were analysed in two dimensions: social (socio-demographic changes) and physical (changes in the spatial and functional structure and changesin the physiognomy). The key question was whether the changes occurring in large housing estates in Łódź protect them before the development of the social and physical degradation, identified in many estates in Western Europe, referred as the “large housing estate syndrome”. Research has shown that in examined housing estates there are no symptoms of physical or social degradation. Moreover, processes found there contribute to the prevention of the negative phenomena leading to the development of the “large housing estate syndrome”.

The objective of the article is to analyse the changes in labour market destinations of geography graduates in selected countries over the last 30 years. Moreover, the paper discusses the results of a Polish study on professional career plans of recent geography graduates and the fulfilment of these plans in 2012. It has been established that key professions in which a geography degree proves useful include: teachers, GIS specialists, and land use/environmental planners. Currently, Polish students would like to work mainly as specialists dealing with analysing and monitoring environmental changes, urban planners, spatial designers and teachers. Sadly, their expectations are hardly ever met and only students looking for teaching positions were most likely to succeed in their job seeking efforts.

The road investment stage is always preceded with projects, which relate to multifaceted economic, environmentaland spatial analyses. The visual values of the surroundings are usually neglected when designing and building motorways and express roads. The authors believe that the increasingly large-space range of motorway construction requires that more attention be paid to the landscape context of such investments. Functioning of all objects of the accompanying infrastructure of the transportation system affect the way the space is organized. The aim of the article is to assess, in detail, the scenic values of a selected section of the Pan-European Transport Road Corridor – National Road No. 1, in the Silesian Voivodship. The Pan-European Transport Road Corridor runs through Poland from south to north.

In 2011, there were legislative changes made in Polish laws concerning water management and spatial planning. These changes resulted from the implementation of the Floods Directive, particularly its first stage. In consequence, the Polish government introduced legal acts altering the previously binding legislation, including those acts directly concerning the spatial development of floodplains. The Floods Directive was adopted by the European Parliament and the European Council in 2007 as a response to the growing urbanisation of floodplains. Urbanisation is causing more frequent flooding. The results are increased material (loss of property) and non-material (loss of life) losses. The main aim of this paper is to present the legislative changes introduced in Poland in relation to spatial planning in floodplains, resulting from the implementation of the Floods Directive. The paper also aims at defining how these changes may influence the future development of flood zones.

This paper presents an analysis of citations to Geographia Polonica, a leading English-language geographical journal edited by Polish geographers, boasting its 50-year-long history. The examination was based on Google Scholar and its Publish or Perish application, that is the most comprehensive search engine of citations which returns the most representative results for Polish sources, particularly in social sciences. Due to the nature of Google Scholar – it only explores existing materials shared in the Internet – the study shows a series of regularities in contemporary citations.

Presented here with reference to Poland is a new method by which to assess the efficiency of a country’s transport network in relation to its settlement network. The work described proceeds on the assumption that efficiency is greatest where connections by road for private cars take the shortest route in a straight line, without restrictions or limitations in the course of the journey made. Real barriers and limitations arising from bends and speed limits reduce traffic speeds, thereby limiting the efficiency in transport-related and settlement terms.